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North/South or East/West Antenna Alignment?

K

Keith Thompson

AC1EG, Guns & Radios, Icom IC-7300, Yaesu FT-60R
Dec 27, 2017
49
38
28
75
Southern Maine
I have a 140' dipole antenna that I'll be hanging sometime this week for use with my Icom I-7300. I'm in southern Maine, so If you guys were in my position would you string the antenna oriented north/south or east/west? It looks like north/south would be good for DX contacts in Europe and here in the US. East/west might make it possible for over-the-poles and down to the southern US and Central/South America (I know, I'm being wildly optimistic here).

Any thoughts?
 

If you have enough trees and space, I would do both.

If I could only do 1, I would go east-west which would cover more towards Europe and westward towards Asia and Oceania when the bands are good. Going over the poles isn't supposed to be as reliable from what I've been told.

You already have a short path to Europe from your location, but contacts to South America and Africa may be limited. It doesn't mean you cant work them, it's just tougher if the bands aren't too good because that'll be the weaker lobe from a east-west antenna position.
 
tba02 said:
How high will it be? That will impact the radiation pattern.
I'd look at a NNW-SSE configuration myself.
Click to expand...

What bands do you want to cover (I assume all) and how high will it be? Dipoles that are low in terms of wavelength do not have much directivity if any at all and long dipoles such as 140 feet will exhibit weird multilobe patterns when operated on much higher bands like 17m and up. That high and the pattern becomes more aligned with the direction the wire runs and not broadside to the wire like it would on the lower bands if it was high enough to make it directional.
 
This would be assuming it was a single band dipole (and 80 meters based on the 140' reference)
Page-Elev%20Effects%20on%20Rad%20Pattern.png

The above is taken from http://www.qsl.net/kk4obi which is an excellent reference.

If this is going to be a doublet then I would look at this link - http://webclass.org/k5ijb/antennas/All-Band-Doublet.htm
 
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The antenna is a Cobra UltraLite Senior 140' dipole with a ladder line feeder. It's rated for 160 to 10 meters. The trees around my house basically allow me to choose pretty much N/S or E/W. The house will interfere with a diagonal and I don't want to go over the house so I can have the option of lowering the antenna in high winds.

I'm having a tree climber come over to rig a block and tackle in each tree. I'm guessing he'll be able to get it at least 30' high, perhaps as high as 50'.
 
Oh damn, you just made that awesome!

Keith Thompson said:
I'm having a tree climber come over to rig a block and tackle in each tree.
Click to expand...

Make sure he puts one in all four trees!

I would have to more specific research on the characteristics of that antenna (sorry), but a quick check shows it should be similar to a dipole. Assuming that is the case, and with the solar cycle favoring 20-160m, I would go N/S for the slight US/EU coverage you might get on 20/40

BUT - if you do all 4 trees you can test/change which is (for me) part of the fun.
 
With the antenna oriented along a N/S line it will cover pretty much everything from the northeast to the southeast and from the southwest to the northwest pretty much evenly. This allows coverage of Europe, Middle East and all of Africa as well as all the USA, eastern Australia and a large portion of the Pacific.
 

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